so maybe his arachnophobia is pretty reasonable. A funnel-web spider can kill you in 15 minutes. https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2017/02/worlds-deadliest-spider-the-sydney-funnel-web/

she is retired Federal Marshall - lots of experience physically taking down suspects and has the lasting injuries to prove it. One day she said she almost called me in the middle of the night because a spider was in her bathtub!

I was out on horseback, going through local orange groves on permitted trails.

A banana spider landed on my neck near my helmet! It seems the lead rider on a taller horse went under her web and it made her angry. I didn't fall off or anything, but stopped and removed her to the nearest orange tree.

Spiders really do not scare me, nor do snakes (and I've been bitten). It's just what they do! Banana spiders aren't poisonous, AFAIK. The bitten was a copperhead snake - THEM I avoid! (No snakes at all way up here except in terrariums.)

Great post. I love the way Australia deals with stuff

Banana spider:

To catch spider webs and knock the spiders to the side. Since my Appaloosa was 16'3" I got nominated to be lead rider most of the time. If I'd ever gotten into a drill team or honor guard that would have been great training!

We mostly rode on the dikes left from phosphate mining. They were old and had oaks growing on both sides of the road giving those big spiders perfect places to build road spanning webs. Most of those old mined out areas have now been reclaimed so the habitat is completely different now - less diversity in ground level and easier to mow so fewer trees and less wildlife.

Saddle Creek Park east of Lakeland is a lot like the st7uff we used to ride through especially in the less developed parts of the park off the main roads.

I got to bring him up when dad got transferred. You should have seen him in his first snow! We actually bought a heated stall with a paddock area for him before we moved "out" enough to keep him close. Of course, his new stall was also heated.

OMG, the horse hair in spring......... I believe he grew 3 added-on coats that first winter!

His formal name (on the papers) was Stonewall Jackson. I renamed him Stoney - it fit!

He even got along with the locals - ducks, cranes, caribou, didn't matter. I still miss him.

But he probably had a lot of Thoroughbred in him. I found him at a ranch in Zolfo Springs - he'd never been to a town, raised on the ranch seeing cows and other horses. They delivered him to our vet across town and I had to pony him back to the pasture on my 13'3" pony (that became my little sister's horse). But he was the calmest horse ever. I started him under saddle and two months after I bought him rode him in the Halloween Parade. He was great, never blew up, never flinched at anything.

I had to sell him when I went to college but the kid who bought him was thrilled with him.

Carrots helped, and an occasional "extra" snack - he liked Snickers Bars..... Apps are very calm and very human-oriented if given the chance. Not always amiable, but I never rode saddle. Used a hackamore to train (no bit), and he'd get frisky but not ever mean.

No Halloween parades up here, too cold for most spectators, but his first summer here, he got to appear in our Golden Days Parade (yearly tradition) and valiantly pooped right in front of a police car......

I so miss him.